3 Reasons Why Your Business Should Be On Snapchat

Snapchat is a phone-only social media platforms that allows the users to send disappearing picture messages and videos, also known as “Snaps”, directly to friends or followers. The app gives you the option to overlay text or draw pictures to convey a message.  Last year, Snapchat introduced the “Story” feature, where users can post pictures and videos taken with user’s phone, in sequential order, to your “Story”.  These stories last for 24 hours and can be viewed as many times as desired by the user’s followers.

SO WHAT’S SNAPCHAT’S APPEAL TO USERS?

First off, there is a sense of privacy on the app that no long exists on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.  Snapchat’s main user-base, mostly millennials and Generation Z, have been straying away from Facebook as parents and potential employers become more active on the site.  These larger platforms are slowly losing the “cool factor” with the younger generations because a stigma has arisen surrounding Facebook that what’s posted on there is permanent and for everyone to see, resulting in more pressure to sensor content, and show less of what users want to be posting.

To the previous point, sent Snaps are only available for a limited amount of time; thus, users get the sense that what they post is only available momentarily.  Snapchat doesn’t offer any “Like”, “Share” or comment features, so the worry that a post is publicly disapproved doesn’t exist.  It allows the user to be who they want to be, and send what they way to send.
Not only that, but all Snaps are sent from phone camera giving everyone, including brands, a level playing field in regard to the content that’s posted. That’s why the users love it, and will continue to use it well into the future.

HERE ARE THREE REASONS WHY YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD LOVE SNAPCHAT TOO:

1. SNAPCHAT IS A MARKETER’S DREAM COME TRUE.

You’ve already done the hard work of building a following on other social media platforms.  Now with the general consensus saying “Social media is the new form of marketing,” every business has jumped on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Newsfeeds can only display so many posts in a given timeframe, and user attention is at an all time low on these platforms.  With an exception to Instagram, posting a picture or a message on these main social media platforms gives you less than a 1% engagement rate.

On the contrary, brands on Snapchat have seen engagement rates upwards of 80% – meaning 4 out of 5 followers watch at least some of the company’s story.  Even more impressive, of those 80%, 90% watch the stories all the way through to the end, (even on Stories that lasted up to five minutes).  Color Club, a client of ours based out of Long Island, showed engagement rates of over 90% on their recent campaign, of which, 99% of viewers watched the stories to the very end.

Engagement rates this high haven’t existed anywhere since TV advertising in the 50’s and 60’s.

2. THE USER-BASE IS CONTINUING TO GROW, AND WE’VE ONLY SEEN THE BEGINNING OF SNAPCHAT.

Snapchat launched in the Apple app store back in September 2011, and since has amassed a user-base of around 100 million monthly active users, (the Snapchat founders, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are often coy with hard facts, but 100 million was the number disclosed by an informed person in a Mashable article).

Snapchat picked up popularity with High School students and soon caught on with the college demographic.  According to the Pew Research Center, over 77% of college students now use the app on a daily basis, as Snapchat has become a main form of communication for the younger generations over Facebook, Twitter, and even text messages.  It’s no wonder Mark Zuckerberg offered to buy the company for over $3 Billion.

As a business, you should be spending time and resources where your target demographic is and will be. For the time being, and for the foreseeable future, that place is Snapchat.

3. IT SHOWS YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC YOU COMMUNICATE THE WAY THEY WANT TO BE REACHED.

Millennials love brands that communicate the way their friends do. By having a presence on Snapchat, your millennial consumers can see you are welcoming their culture and speaking to them like one of their peers would.  If you want to connect with millennials, and any other generation for that matter, speak to them through their desired mediums, not yours.  Snapchat is the perfect way for businesses to do just that.

It will keep you relevant and show that you do listen to what this generation wants – and if you listen to your customers, your customers will listen to you.

As brands still figure out the best ways to utilize Snapchat, your company has the opportunity to be a trailblazer on this exciting social media platform.  The brands who will set themselves apart and take advantage of this wide-open frontier, are the ones who jump in with two feet and embrace everything Snapchat has to offer.

For more information on Snapchat for business, or questions on Marketing to Millennials, email info@bluebearcreative.co.

Subscribe & Get Your Free E-book “What the Best Brands on Social Media Do Differently”

* indicates required

Blue Bear Creative is a Denver social media agency focused on helping food and beverage brands market to millennials.